


All The Mad Millennia Past

by liketogetlost



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-23 05:31:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/618641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liketogetlost/pseuds/liketogetlost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose Tyler leaves the cemetery wearing black rimmed eyes and no one tries to stop her when she enters a strange blue box and disappears. Maybe that's what happens, they say, when you lose everyone you've ever loved. You walk into a police box and fly away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Mad Millennia Past

**Author's Note:**

> Post series four. And because he is the only right choice, Eleven is [Mr. Paul Bettany](http://i42.tinypic.com/15i5jpw.png), and don't you forget it.

It's been longer than he can recall. He's developed an affinity for smoking and taken a liking to jazz. His suits tend to be purple, never pinstriped, and he's had them all tailored at this special shop near the edge of the galaxy by a nice bloke called Sid.

He keeps a pistol under the console of the TARDIS and a torch burning between his hearts.

It's been fifty years and she hasn't aged a day. Rose Tyler leaves the cemetery wearing black rimmed eyes and no one tries to stop her when she enters a strange blue box and disappears. Maybe that's what happens, they say, when you lose everyone you've ever loved. You walk into a police box and fly away.

They'll never know, it won't seem to matter to tell later, what moment in time they picked to find each other again. That it was the exact same day, hour, minute, one point second that they both stood beneath glowing greens and reds and said _no_.

It took her half a century to realize what she never could before. That time wears you down, that it's easier said than done to watch everyone you know age and wither before your eyes and not do anything about it. That you should play nice when you can use time and space as a game board beneath your fingertips.

But that sometimes, you can't.

And thing is, it took him a while to figure out what kind of man he was this time around. But he knows now, with complete certainty, as sure as the smoke burns his lungs, that he doesn't bloody well give a damn.

He's that sort of a man. 

\--

The weight of her heart crashes to her stomach when that first rushing metal sound of the TARDIS echoes off the console room walls. She turns, slowly, and feels the wisp of her silk nightgown being blown against her thighs by some phantom wind. Her eyes close, instinctively, and even when she hears, feels, the doors open she doesn't dare look at what might not really be there.

Fingertips that know her, remember her, find her wrist and she begins to shake, all over and her head back and forth. Because it isn't real, just another terrible dream where she'll wake up to the harsh reality of this scream of time and the empty space beside her in bed.

He doesn't speak, but she can hear him breathe. Deep, rough breaths like he needs twice the air just to make it through this moment. She gasps as he takes her hand properly, holds it like it should be held, brings it up to his chest and there. _Thump thump, thump thump_ , and that's when the searing tears roll down over her cheeks and stain the silk at her chest. 

She wraps her arms around him. Around his neck, face pressing in to feel soft stubble on his cheek. His arms come around her waist and it's chills and heat at once, the palms at her back set course through her entire body. She rubs her face across that hair, feels it lightly scrape her skin and tell her that he's really truly there. He smells like smoke and metal, she inhales deep and lets it fill her lungs.

His body feels different, his touch the same and yet. Fingers curl and grip the fabric of her nightgown and she feels a breeze against new skin, she knows he's changed and she doesn't care.

“ _Rose_.” 

She kisses him without looking.

\--

He's all familiar blue and cherry tinged blonde, his lips are already swollen from her attention when she finally opens her eyes. They both wear matching smiles. “Hi.”

His voice breaks, something like giddiness inside his chest trying to get out. “Hello.”

No more rules, no more cosmic angst and bullshit walls that he built up around himself and swore at the stars to knock back down. It took him eight lifetimes to find his soul mate and two to realize he couldn't live one more without her. He kisses her again and swears at the stars one last time and at himself, for the both of them. He's pulled up her gown without realizing it and the bare skin of her back beneath his hands causes them to shake.

He knows he's gone. He knows she's lived too long, can feel it in the way she looks at him with eyes older than her body. The trail of his tongue across her throat tastes the years as he makes his way to her collarbone and apologizes to the marrow there, and again to her soft breast below. More tears stain the silk, this time they aren't hers.

She wants to tell him everything, she wants to tell him nothing. She wants to ask him what took him so long, wants to know why it took living through a death to bring him back to her. Dark brown aged eyes flash through her mind then and a wave of pain passes through her. A sob escapes from her lips and she grips his shoulders like she's going to fall as he presses her to the console and his waist to hers. 

Hands stroke her thighs as eyes rush over her face. All she can say, over and over, is “I know.” 

She'll never tell him she loves him again.

\--

“So the universe didn't collapse. Neither of them.”

“I said it was a possibility, never a fact. I thought I might be able to land inside your TARDIS now without breaking through the void, since it's technically not part of either universe. But I couldn't ever take the chance.”

“What changed, then?”

“Nothing. I just figured, fuck it. You're worth it.”

\--

They're selfish, this time. It's a dangerous thing, love without the possibility of it ending. Even more dangerous is the way he kisses her neck in public and smiles at her over the heads of people in crowds that will never keep them apart for long. 

They still save the world, but the world has to earn it, this time. If they have to choose the world or each other, the world loses every time. Somehow it all works out in the end. Neither of them worry about when it won't, because he's never letting go of her hand again. They share cigarettes over tea and he teaches her how to shoot. 

“Hold it steady. Keep your eye on the target.” They stand parallel, his chest pressing against her back and his hands holding her hips in place.

His nose brushes the shell of her ear and she shivers. He smiles, squeezing her waist. “Relax. Stand up straight, brace yourself, and...”

The recoil of the shot knocks her back slightly, and the Doctor chuckles and wraps his arms around her middle. “Not bad.” Lays kisses down the side of her neck as she pulls the target to their booth.

“Yeah?” She was never one to carry a pistol, even with Torchwood. Big, heavy laser guns were more her thing and somehow felt less dangerous. Now she stares into the holes she shot, a nice cluster like stars close enough to the bullseye to satisfy her, and clicks back the safety without looking.

“It's nice. Looks old.” He hums against her throat in response, hands wandering beneath her top, over her belly. She strokes the antique handle. Smooth, dark wood that she can just make out his reflection in. Brighter hair, sleeker suit. He drags his teeth over her skin and she gasps, turning around. Pale lashes ghost his cheek as he looks her up and down. The nerves in her body dance and her knees begin to shake.

Like he can read her mind, he picks her up and sits her on the counter, walking to stand between her thighs.

“Never thought I'd see you with one of these.” Rose pushes the gun to the side and grips him by the lapels.

His smile is slow and tugs her in, like always. “Different man. Different rules.”

“Quite right.” She smiles back, bites her lip and kisses the most prominent freckle on his nose. “Bit more freckles than last, maybe.”

“Yeah? Might have to check that, then.”

“What a mission!”

Shots ring off at other booths as the Doctor pulls her legs up by the ankles to rest round his waist, and Rose counts ten more freckles beneath his eyes as they kiss. 

She's a different person, too. Some changes don't leave marks. 

\--

Some nights she doesn't sleep and some nights he sleeps too long. She thinks about phoning Tony but she remembers his face the last time she visited. The Doctor mentions her mum and then holds her while she cries. They find another fucking Dalek hiding across the galaxy and he lets her blow it away, for fun. Afterwards they go to a pub and get pissed, playing the same Sex Pistols song on the jukebox until the owner kicks them out. He goes down on her against the pub's brick wall and later, in bed, she takes his hand as she comes, gripping it as hard as the first time. When it was a bit bigger and callused and one of two of their four to have touched war. She doesn't let go as they spend the night not sleeping and she remembers what he told her before he died.

“He'll come back for you.”

They eat chips for breakfast on a bench in a park with flowers that grow petals the color of rainbows. Rose lays across the wood, damp from morning dew, and rests her feet in the Doctor's lap, plucking blue and purple and red and letting them fall into her hair. He reaches over and slides his fingertips across the sliver of her belly that says hello as her top rises. She snaps up quickly and grins past the blonde curtain in her face. Tosses her head, shaking off the petals into the wind and opens her mouth as the Doctor lifts a chip to her lips. The salt burns from where he bit them last night but it feels good.

He pops another into his mouth and grins as he chews. “Where to, then?”

\--

They stay away from beaches. They never go to Norway.

They run a little faster, these days.


End file.
